Toxicogenomics for transcription factor-governed molecular pathways: Moving on to roles beyond classification and prediction

摘要

In this issue of Archives for Toxicology, Jennings et al. (2012) provide a review of transcriptional regulation associated with perturbation of a variety of biological pathways by chemicals. The review focuses on specific transcriptional regulatory networks activated by what the authors refer to as "transcription factor-governed molecular pathways." We will use their terminology throughout our perspective. These pathways include the family of nuclear receptors, several stress-activated transcription factors, and two immunomodulatory transcription factors: STAT and NF-kB. One goal of knowing the specificity of transcriptomic responses from these pathways is development of biomarkers for the "transcription factor-governed pathway" that could support classification or early prediction of likely toxic responses of compounds.